Creating an application manually

As an application specialist, you can manually create application models in the TrueSight console by using devices and groups from BMC TrueSight Infrastructure Management, or devices discovered by BMC TrueSight App Visibility Manager, or a combination of components. You create the application model and define the relationships and dependencies between the components. The application generates events based on the event conditions that are specified with the devices.

To manually create an application that you can monitor, you add devices, groups, or both, and create dependencies between the components. To prevent the loss of data and configuration information, periodically back up your App Visibility databases.

Before you begin

To perform this procedure, you must have Application Administrator-level access.

To create a manual application model and add components

When you create an application, you add devices or groups to the application model. The devices or groups that you add are displayed as nodes model. You can connect the nodes and establish their hierarchy. When you click a node in the application model, details of the node are displayed in a configuration pane at the bottom of the page, as shown in the following figure:

1. In the TrueSight console, click Configuration > Applications. 

2. On the Applications Management page, click the action menu icon  and select Create Application.

   Enter the following application details in the Create Application page:

   Field	Description
   Name	Enter an application name.
   Type	(Read only) Because the application is being created manually, the type is Manual.
   Synthetic	To enable synthetic monitoring, select ON. If you enable synthetic monitoring, then set up synthetic transaction monitoring after saving the application.
   Description	(Optional) Enter an application description.
   Importance	Set the importance of the application in your network. Importance is not calculated based on an algorithm. The default setting is Medium.
   Status Computation Model	(Read only) Determines the algorithm that is used to compute the status of the application
   Associated CI	To associate a Configuration Item (CI) to the application. For more information about how to associate a CI to the application, see Associating an application to a service.

   The parent node that contains the application name is displayed on the Model tab.

3. To add devices to the application you are creating, click Configure Devices.
4. In the Search for Devices box, you can search for devices that you want to add to the application. You can add devices belonging to Infrastructure Management or App Visibility. 
   Select a device in one of the following ways:
   
   • Click Search to see a list of all available devices.
   • Enter a device name, or part of a name, and click Search. 
5. Select the devices that you want to add to the application and click OK.
6. Click Configure Groups and select groups in the same way that you select devices.
   The devices and groups are displayed as unconnected nodes next to the application model.
7. Connect devices and groups in the application model:
   1. Select a device or group you want as a parent of another node.
   2. In the node configuration pane below the model, select child nodes under the Add/Remove Dependent Node(s) list.
   3. If you want the event status of the child node to be reflected in the parent node, ensure that Enable Status Propagation is selected (it is selected by default). Otherwise, the status of the device is not reflected in the parent node.

   4. If you select a group, you can select Enable the Group to be a Cluster, and then enter a value from 1 to 100 to calculate a quorum. The following video (3:49) illustrates  how you can use the Quorum status computation model that is used to compute the group impact status in a manual application.

      Click here to see the video that explains how Quorum status computation model computes the group impact status
         https://youtu.be/nmd3uKwQ7Sw
       Click here to see examples of the quorum algorithm.

      The CLUSTER option for Status Computation uses the QUORUM impact function, which is described as follows:
      
      When you create a quorum type of StatusModel, you can specify a percentage, called the quorum percentage. The quorum value is given by the quorum slot of the BMC_STATUS_COMPUTATION instance.
      
      The impact_status is the highest propagated_status that a quorum percentage of provider agrees on.
      
      An easy computation of the quorum status can be performed as follows:

      • There are n providers with propagated_status different from NONE: let i be the lowest integer that is greater than or equal to quorum* n /100.
      • Consider the array of propagated_status ordered from highest to lowest status.
      • The impact_status is the status corresponding to the element i of this array.

      Example

      
      CASE A website 1 (quorum-based component status computation)
      host1
      host2
      Example A1

      QUORUM=50, host1=OK, host2=IMPACTED

      
      50*2/100 = 1 => i = 1
      array = [IMPACTED, OK]
      The percentage of hosts that are not AVAILABLE is 50%, which breaches the quorum threshold, so the status of website 1 is IMPACTED.
      Example A2

      QUORUM=51, host1=OK, host2=IMPACTED 

      
      1 < 51*2/100 < 2 => q = 2
      array = [IMPACTED, OK]
      The percentage of hosts that are not OK is 50%, which does not breach the quorum threshold, so the status of website 1 is OK.
      Example A3

      QUORUM=51, host1=MINOR, host2=IMPACTED

      
      1 < 51*2/100 < 2 => q=2
      array = [IMPACTED, MINOR]
      There is indeed at least 51% of the providers (actually 100%) that state a severity at least MINOR, so the status of website 1 = MINOR
      CASE B website 2 (quorum-driven, impact-based component status computation)
      host1
      host2
      host3
      host4
      Example B1

      quorum_percent=30, host1=OK, host2=OK, host3=OK, host4=Minor

      
      1<30*4/100<2=>q=2
      array = [MINOR, OK, OK, OK]
      The percent of hosts that are not UNAVAILABLE is 25%, which is less than 30%, so the status of website2 is OK.
      Example B2

      quorum_percent=30, host1=OK, host2=OK, host3=UNAVAILABLE, host4=MINOR

      
      1 < 30*4/100 < 2 => q = 2
      array = [UNAVAILABLE, MINOR, OK, OK]
      There is at least 30% (actually 50%) of the providers that state a severity of at least MINOR, so the status of website 2 is MINOR.
      Example B3

      quorum_percent=60, host1=MINOR, host2=OK, host3=UNAVAILABLE, host4=UNAVAILABLE

      
      2 < 60*4/100 < 3 => q=3
      array = [UNAVAILABLE, UNAVAILABLE, MINOR, OK]
      There is at least 60% (actually 75%) of the providers that state a severity at least MINOR, so the status of website 2 = MINOR

   5. Click Done.
      The device or group is now a part of the application model with its own child and parent nodes.
8. Click Save.

The application is created and you can view the application model on the Model tab. Use the zoom feature on the right corner screen of the Model tab to zoom in and zoom out the application model.

To create an App Visibility database backup file

Make a physical backup of the App Visibility PostgreSQL databases to protect your data and configuration information from loss. The output of a physical backup contains the data files that the App Visibility server can use directly, resulting in a faster recovery operation.

1. On the computer with the App Visibility portal or collector, navigate to the following directory:
   • (Windows)
     collector_installationDirectory\collector\bin\db
     or portal_installationDirectory\portal\bin\db
   • (Linux)
     collector_installationDirectory/collector/bin/db
     or portal_installationDirectory/portal/bin/db
   If the portal and collector are installed on the same computer, they share a database, and you only need to perform the procedure in one place.
2. Run the following script:
   
   • (Windows) create-pgsql-dump.bat
   • (Linux) ./create-pgsql-dump.sh

The script creates a backup of the data in the avdb.dump file in the server component's installationDirectory\ADOP_DB\pgsql\backup directory.

For more information about making PostgreSQL database backup files, see Backup and Restore .

For instructions about database recovery, see Backing up and recovering the App Visibility database.

Where to go from here

The created application is displayed in the Applications page, where you can view the health of applications in your network.

You can manually set up end-user monitoring, if you have not done so already, to analyze end-user data in the Application View.